Month: October 2018

Greenhouse potting bench & shelving

A quick greenhouse update: today I assembled a potting bench and added it to the greenhouse (along with some soil bins we’ve had for years, which fit quite well):

I did think about building a custom bench, but this was pretty much exactly what we wanted, much cheaper and easier than a custom one would be.

I also added some basic metal shelving for seed trays and such:

I’ll probably build some larger wooden shelves at some point, but that’ll do for now.

Pretty much ready to start being used now:

Cat update: baby possum, raccoon, fall leaves, and videos

Cat update time! Actually, two weeks worth; I wrote a blog post last week, but apparently forgot to publish it! So I’ll start with that, and add on photos from this past week.

A young possum visited last week the previous week:

And a raccoon:

And an adult possum:

Did you see the Stretched & Vocal Cats video on YouTube?

Four cats:

Standing on the deck and eating:

More standing around:

Kisses on a leafy deck:

Lots of fall leaves in the feeder (which I’ve since cleaned out):

Snuggle pile:

Jumping down from on top of the camera housing:

A raccoon has turned up much later than before, after the breakfast is dispensed. So time to move breakfast to later:

Poppy and Porcini:

Did you also see the More Cat Snuggles video?

Ha, disappointed raccoon!

The cats aren’t disappointed:

Porcini looking at a bug:

Hug:

One cat watching out the front door, one in the window:

Four cats at breakfast time:

Hey there:

Enjoying a sunbeam:

Three cats outside:

Apologies for missing a week! I’m going to try to post every Saturday starting today… aka #Caturday.

Bee inspection: passing of purple

We did a beehive inspection today.

Smoker:

The yellow hive is still looking great, with lots of honey stored for the winter:

The Flow hive is also doing well, with a decent amount of stored honey:

I mentioned in my previous bee blog post that we were concerned about the purple hive; that it seemed like it had collapsed.

Well, that’s been confirmed. There were no bees, and all the frames had been robbed, i.e. all the honey scavenged by other bees and wasps, leaving just empty wax cells:

We removed the two dead hives:

Disappointing, especially since the purple hive was doing so well earlier.

We’ll replace the frames and get a couple more nucs to replace the bees next year, and try again.

Greenhouse assembly

Over the weekend (and a bit elsewhen) I assembled a small greenhouse purchased from Amazon.

Here are a sequence of images taken from about the same position, showing the assembly (with more detailed pics following):

Let’s go back to the beginning. Here’s the 90 lb package:

I built a foundation out of treated posts I had on hand (concrete would have been better, but this should be fine):

I secured the posts to the ground with some heavy-duty metal spikes:

The base of the greenhouse:

The base is secured to the foundation with several lag bolts:

I added an optional accessory, a louvered vent:

Back corner:

Openable roof vent:

Gutter:

Base of the door, with a magnetic catch:

Inside:

Another optional accessory, an automatic opener for the roof vent, that opens or closes it based on the temperature inside:

The vent open:

The greenhouse feels pretty solid, and hopefully is anchored quite well, but I also added a third accessory, tie-down anchor cables to make it even more secure:

The cables go over the top:

Hopefully we’ll make good use of this over time. It could be very useful to get a head start on spring veggie planting, and more.

Cat update: raccoons, rain, and relaxation

For your weekly feral cat update, a few encounters with raccoons, a spot of rain, and a lot of sleepy cats.

Looking at the camera:

Four cat snuggle:

Face-to-face with raccoons; the cat hissed, and the raccoon wisely backed off submissively:

Watching a bird:

Peeking out the door of the shelter at the rain:

Sometimes ya gotta step over to get to the food:

Ready for her close-up:

Oh look, more snuggles:

Breakfast queue:

Another raccoon visit, and quick egress:

Another breakfast queue; they’re so polite about taking turns (usually):

On rare occasions they have a brief disagreement, but it is always quickly resolved in the cat way (de-escalating by looking away and ignoring the other, until they settle down again):

Looking out the window:

Can you see four cats? Look closely:

Watching a deer walk behind the cat house:

A raccoon invaded the shelter, but retreated after being hissed at by the cat:

Finally, another snuggle pile: